I joined a small company in March 2007, 50 employees, in telecom/video conferencing domain. They had a product and idea. I was initially involved in enhancement requests on software witch used in the product. Through the process I understood the major issues and got opportunity to redesign it. I derived and implemented an Artificial Intelligence algorithm and technique which eliminated all issues and can perform a complex logic which needs human intervention otherwise, automatically.
They told me that they will file for a patent on that. They hired a lawyer. I implemented it, proved that it works using tools, I provided detail documentation also. I and the lawyer had regular meetings, he needed to understand the details, and I provided it with all good faith. He showed the patent filing document to me, I validated it. The manager asked for my signature on a document, which mentions my name as a co-inventor and that I did all this under my job assignment. Which was OK, I accepted it and signed the document.
After a month or two, my manager started behaving with me very roughly, I protested and he fired me on the charge of insubordination. No other person from the company and upper management have even bothered to listen to me once, they send me a letter telling my job has been terminated. This happened in November 2008. They just gave me 1 month extra salary.
I had to struggle to get a new Job, and found one in January, 2009. Now searching the patent database, I found they actually filed a patent. I have the application number, same lawyer, but my name is no where. Only the top managers name are their. The Patent document contains my formula, details about automated AI process/algorithm which I developed, implemented and documented.
I do not claim any rights on the patent.I don’t know if any law is violated by anyone. But I feel what happened is definitely unethical. I just wanted my name to be mentioned in the patent so that I can put it in my resume. That’s all.

